


Goodnight, Moon

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Babysitting, Fluff, Humor, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 09:29:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3564665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky babysits a neighbour's kid. It's about as weirdly cute as you'd expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodnight, Moon

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the delightful Barbara, my online platonic soulmate who cries with me about Bucky Barnes.  
> This was born out of a love of dads and the ridiculous juxtaposition between a metal arm and a seven year old.  
> PS. I don't have an Xbox. Sorry to enthusiasts if it's used wrong.  
> Comments are super appreciated!

“Bucky, are you sure you’re okay with this?”

Steve’s hovering by the front door with a frown so deep on his face that it’ll probably leave a dent between his eyebrows. Bucky shrugs.

“Fine. S’only a kid.”

Mark and Susan smile gratefully at him, but it mixed in with a sort of desperate edging towards the door – they clearly haven’t been out by themselves in a while. They’re dressed to the nines in a grey suit and floral dress respectively, and there’s something in the amount of work that Susan’s put into her makeup that makes Bucky think she’s gone a bit stir crazy. He takes a look at the seven year old boy watching In The Night Garden and congratulates himself on dressing up in full Winter Soldier-garb. He’d only stopped short of war paint when Steve had walked in on him with his eyebrows raised and said, “Really?”

“Thank you so much, James. Really. It’s been such a long time since we’ve been out to dinner!”

Bucky shrugs again. Everyone seems to be making a huge deal over this one child.

“It’s okay. Easy work.”

Steve throws him one more meaningful glance as he heads out the door behind Mark and Susan, who are already halfway down the stairs and giggling loudly.

“Buck?”

“Fine. Go.” With a small smile, Steve closes the door. The click echoes in the quiet apartment and the child on the sofa looks up.

“Where’s my mom and dad gone?” Bucky looks around at the kid, who’s twisted around so his arms are propped up on the back of the couch, a teddy stuffed under one small armpit.

“To dinner.”

“With Steve from next door?”

“Yes.”

“Do you live with Steve?”

“Yes.”

“Are you dating Steve?”

“-No.” “Why didn’t you go to dinner?”

“Don’t like restaurants.”

“How come?”

Bucky stops, his head briefly spinning. Good God, were all children this talkative? Walking up behind the sofa, he grabs the kid by the shoulders and twists him round, plopping him back down facing the TV. He picks up the teddy that had fallen next to him, and dumps it in the boy’s lap.

“Just don’t.”

* * *

 

He’s sat in the armchair by the fireplace, looking through some old HYDRA files when the child speaks again.

“My show’s finished.”

“Great news,” Bucky replies drily.

There’s a small lapse into silence again, and Bucky looks down at the paperwork, not really taking much in. The words _nuclear_ , _hostile force_ , and _neutralise_ stick out, but nothing’s going in. When he looks up, the kid is standing 6 inches from his face, peering intently at him.

“Holy shi- what?”

“Mom says we shouldn’t swear.”

“I stopped myself. Also, your mom’s not here.”

The kid’s stumped for a moment. “I could tell her.”

“Your mom isn’t my mom. And no one likes a grass.”

The kid throws him a look that’s far too shitty to be coming from a seven year old, and plonks himself down on the sofa again, arms wrapped around his teddy. Bucky enjoys the quiet for a brief moment before he starts kicking the bottom of the sofa with his feet. The repetitive _thump-thump_ gets old fast, and Bucky looks up with a sigh.

“Yes?”

“My bedtime’s 8:30 on a Friday.”

“Okay. You’ve got thirty minutes, then. Watch some TV.”

When the boy doesn’t reply, Bucky puts down the files on the coffee table and looks directly at him.

“What do you want to do?” The kid’s face lights up so fast that Bucky almost cracks a grin. Almost.

“Wanna play Xbox with me?”

Bucky pauses. “Umm, sure.”

Before Bucky’s even aware of what’s happening, the boy’s kneeling in front of the TV and pressing buttons on the console, grabbing a controller and throwing it at Bucky, who catches it out of reflex and then stares at the weird contraption in his hands.

“Have you played this before?”

“No. I haven’t.” The boy honest-to-God _wiggles_ before settling himself on the edge of the coffee table.

“Awesome. I’ll teach you.”

There’s a quiet bleep as the console comes to life, and then some annoying tinny music starts playing as a go-kart appears on screen.

Bucky hates how much he loves it already.

* * *

 

“What’s the time?”

“Umm,” Bucky glances down from the TV and checks his watch, “nine-thirty.”

The boy hits pause on the game so quickly that Bucky carries on steering for a full five seconds before he realises that nothing’s happening.“Hey-“

“I gotta go to bed!”

Bucky stops and looks at the kid. “Really?”

The boy throws himself a long-suffering look.

“What?”

“I was just getting into it.”

The kid laughs and straightens up, staring Bucky in the eyes. “You suck.”

“I do not!”

“You do. You lost eight times!”

“It’s not my fault,” Bucky squawks indignantly. “You always pick the Italian plumber, he’s so fast!”

But the boy’s not listening, and he’s already hit the power button on the console and grabbed his teddy. “I gotta be asleep before Mom gets home!”

Bucky gets his feet wearily. “Alright, alright.”

The kid runs off down the hall, and Bucky’s soldier-alarm immediately goes off. _Keep within eyesight at all times_. He shakes the thought off quickly and heads into the bathroom, where the kid already seems to have knocked over every toiletry on the windowsill. Bucky cocks an eyebrow, and the kid looks up.

“Oops.” Bucky does smirk at that, because it’s so stupidly innocent.

“Yeah. Oops.”

The boy looks up at him with a toothbrush in his mouth and grins. “I’ll pick it up tomorrow,” he says around a mouthful of foaming toothpaste. It’s gross, but in the way that kids can pull off without it being full-blown disgusting. After he’s spat it out into the sink, he runs up to Bucky and pushes at his hip, letting out little whines when Bucky doesn’t move – it’s kind of endearing how weak he is. Bucky decides to humour him and lets himself be pushed out of the doorway.

“What?”

“I gotta pee!”

“Oh, crap oka- I’ll be in the lounge.”

Bucky jogs down the hallway faster than he’d like to admit.

* * *

 

“Done.”

The kid stands in front of Bucky, hands on his hips. His head’s tilted thoughtfully as he stares at Bucky. He starts to concentrate so hard that his tongue pokes out from between his teeth, and it’s laughable how much it reminds Bucky of Steve. They both look stupid when they focus.

“Problem, kid?”

“Your arm.”

Instinctively, Bucky moves his metal arm behind his body, angling himself so that only his flesh arm is on display. The kid seems alarmed, however, and steps forward.

“No!”

Bucky pauses. “What?”

“I like it!”

“You- you what?”

It almost stops him in his tracks, and he double-takes down at the little boy in front of him who is standing with his arms outstretched.

“It’s so cool!”

“Oh, um. Thanks.”

“Is it super-strong?”

Bucky thinks for a second. How much is he allowed to tell this kid? He decides that he’s never been one for lying, and he’s not going to start now. “Yeah. It’s designed to be really strong.”

“Like, strong enough to hold me up?”

Bucky laughs out loud, a short bark that surprises both him and the kid. “Yes, strong enough to hold you up.”

The boy gets a mischievous glint in his eye, and cocks a hip as he looks up at Bucky.

“I’ve got a deal for you.”

“Oh yeah?”

“You only have to read me two bedtime stories… If I can pretend your arm is a monkey bar.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“A what?”

“A monkey bar! Like at the park!”

Bucky sighs. If it’s getting him part of the way out of story duty, there’s no question. “Fine. Get on.”

And so, in the middle of his neighbour’s apartment at 9:40pm on a Friday night, Bucky holds his metal arm straight out in front of him and watches as a the kid launches himself to grab on to it. Bucky barely feels the pressure, and doesn’t even drop his arm when the boy’s full weight is on him.

There’s a moment where the boy is quiet as he gazes up at the arm, mouth agape but grinning. He glances from the silver plates to his face, and Bucky smirks again at just how gobsmacked the kid looks. It’s one of the nicer reactions he’s had to his arm in recent weeks.

The boy’s eyes gleam again. “If you can carry me like this the whole way to my room, you only have to read me Goodnight Moon.”

Bucky doesn’t even hesitate before walking down the hall, the boy laughing and swaying as he hangs off Bucky’s forearm.

* * *

 

“Mom always does the old lady in a Spanish accent.”

Bucky flicks through the kid’s book as he perches on the chair next to the small bed, where the boy is clambering under his covers and adjusting his teddy until he’s staring right at Bucky. Bucky stares back for a second, but calls it a day when he remembers that an inanimate bear would probably win a staring contest.

“…But all she says is ‘hush’?”

“Yeah. So.”

“So she only says ‘hush’ in a Spanish accent?”

“Yeah. But all the different ‘Goodnights’ are in accents too.”

“There’s like… nineteen ‘Goodnights’ in here.”

“Yup.” The kid pops the ‘p’ and looks at him expectantly.

“You want me to do nineteen different accents?”

“Yup.” Bucky sighs again. At least he’s not reading three stories. He settles down in the chair and rubs a hand over his face before he re-opens the book.

“Alright. Um so…” He trails off, feeling like an idiot, but the boy nods at him. It’s encouraging, almost reassuring.

“In the great green room, there was a telephone…”

* * *

 

“And goodnight to the old lady who’s whispering ‘hush’.”

“That sounded Portuguese.”

“Portu- what? Have you ever met a Portuguese person?”

* * *

 

Three attempts and close to fourty-five accents later, Bucky shuts the book and throws it back onto the bedside table. Probably with more force than the situation calls for, but. Fourty-five accents.

“Thanks.” The boy’s on his side now, covers up to his chin as he peers owlishly at Bucky.

“Sure.”

“Apart from the old lady, you’re good at voices.”

Bucky almost starts an argument again, but he stops himself and instead tries to accept the compliment. “I used to read to my sisters before bed when my mom was working the night-shift.”

There’s a brief pause where they make eye contact, and Bucky randomly finds himself thinking that it’s probably the most he’s shared about his past with a stranger in seventy-odd years. But the boy just nods again, and burrows his head further into his pillow, eyes beginning to droop.

“Cool. I bet you were a great brother.”

Bucky doesn’t really know to respond to that, so he rubs his palms on his thighs and gets to his feet.

“Goodnight.”

“Can you leave one of the lamps on?”

“Sure.”

As he’s about to shut the door, there’s a timid voice from inside the bedroom. “James?”

“Yeah.”

“…Can you check for monsters?”

The boy’s voice is so earnest that Bucky doesn’t laugh at the ridiculousness of the request. Instead, he turns back to where the kid is now sitting up in bed, twisting his hands.

“Monsters?”

“Mom told me not to ask you, but I got scared when you turned the lights out. She said I had to grow out of it.”

There’s a small flare of anger from inside Bucky’s chest as he takes in the boy’s expression.

“Monsters aren’t childish, um…”

“Elliot. Did you not know my name?”

“Uh, no, I didn’t. You know mine?”

“James. I said it just now, and Mom said it earlier.”

Bucky smiles. “Wrong. My name’s Bucky.”

“Bucky?”

“Yup.” Bucky mimics Elliot’s popping of the ‘p’ from earlier.

“Cool.” If there’s one thing that Bucky now like about kids, it’s how ready they are to accept the weird and wonderful. A name. A metal arm. It’s nice.

“You want me to check for monsters?”

“…Would that be okay?” Bucky walks back into the room and crouches by the top of the bed, next to Elliot’s nervous face. He smiles again, easier than before. The position seems familiar, even though it’s so remarkably strange, and Bucky relaxes into it.

“I’ll do one better.”

“You will?”

“Mm-hm. You see this vest?” He taps the bulletproof outerwear with a metal finger.

“Yeah?”

“It’s monster-proof.”

Elliot sits up in bed even higher, face now lit up with wonder. “It is?”

“Yep. So, I’ve got a plan.”

The kid nods violently, and folds his arms tightly across his chest. Bucky psyches himself into soldier-mode.

“I’ll man the perimeter. Set up a controlled border, take the night patrol. Visibility is clear, there’s-“ he pretends to lick his forefinger, “-no wind, so I’ll stay until 0-one hundred hours. Sound good?”

If it was possible for a seven year old to look wearily grateful, Elliot would. Instead, his eyes drop like they’ve been filled with lead as he sinks back under his covers.

“Sounds good.”

Bucky gets to his feet, patting the Elliot’s shoulder as he does. “Alright.”

He heads towards the door again, and stops when he hears a small, fading voice once more.

“Goodnight, Bucky.”

With one more glance behind him, he pulls the door shut quietly. He briefly heads to the dining room table and grabs a chair, pulling it back to Elliot’s bedroom door. He sets it on the opposite wall and then drops into it, bracing a foot on the door frame and folding his arms as he settles in for a long night.

He’s never been one for lying.


End file.
